Authors of manuscripts and documents such as books and research papers frequently cite material such as articles and other books in a bibliography section. The bibliography section is usually attached to the end of the manuscript. (The terms “Works Cited” and “References” mean the same. Each is a list of works that have been cited by an author, or works to which an author has made a reference. However, the term “Bibliography” stands for a list of all the material an author has consulted in preparing a manuscript irrespective of whether or not it has been cited.) Herein, the term “Bibliography” also represents the terms “Works Cited” and “References”.
The entire manuscript including the bibliography section is then copied for distribution to an audience. The author uses the cited reference material as a source of information for writing the manuscript. Traditionally, the reference material has been limited to physical media such as other books, research papers, newspaper and magazine articles, and the like. Occasionally, personal communications (regular mail), works-in-progress (interim reports, confidential reports), are also cited by authors of manuscripts.
However, information available on websites on the World Wide Web, e.g, the Internet, has become an indispensable source for research on several areas of interest and often makes a study more comprehensive. Information can be retrieved instantly from the Internet at any time from any location and may incorporate the most current news. Web based information is not merely an electronic version of a physical publication (such as newspapers and magazines) but is rather a standalone medium with no physical equivalents or limitations (i.e., page size).
Authors and researchers are now starting to cite information from websites in their manuscripts. Various professional bodies have issued protocols for citing web content. In the bibliography section, authors generally include three pieces of information when citing web content. The first piece of information is the address of the website such as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), for instance, www.website.com. The second piece of information is the date of access of the website (by the author) and the third piece of information is the last modified date of the website.
A problem with citing websites as sources of information is that 1) websites are subject to frequent, invisible modifications and 2) may be moved to a new address or removed from the Internet without notice. Moreover, material from a website once accessible to everyone may now be limited to a select audience. Even hypertext essays (published on the Internet itself) now often contain a list of other websites used in that study.
An important reason for citing references from any source including the Internet and traditional published material is to enable verification of the material used from the references. The bibliography section of a manuscript also becomes a resource of information for other researchers in that field. Referees of research papers, editors, other researchers and the audience of the manuscript need to review/verify the information taken from the cited references. Traditionally, the bibliography information is either given in alphabetical order or the order in which the material was used in the manuscript, with a description of the journal or magazine from which it was taken (source), title of the particular essay, editor or author name, volume number of the journal or magazine, date of publication, and particular pages where the content was assimilated. Such information enabled easy review/verification of the bibliography information or reference material.
The problem with citing a website is that the fluid, ever modifiable potential of the content of the website does not guarantee availability and true verification of the material actually used by the author.
Further, information given out by interacting members of news groups (another Internet source) and through personal communication methods such as e-mails that are cited by an author as references cannot be verified by a third party unless the information is reproduced verbatim by the author in the content of the manuscript or in the bibliography section. Authors may also cite works in progress (such as unpublished interim reports) and information obtained through personal communication methods such as regular mail. However, the problem of the inability to review/verify such material also ails these sources.
While traditional publishers generally act as authenticators for the material printed and circulated by them there exists no credibility checking service or protocol for information available over the Internet. Search engines used for selecting websites by keywords give worthy, mediocre, and worthless websites equal importance. So, while it can be considered safe to look up and use content published in a magazine or journal, which are thus authenticated, it might be risky to use content from most web sites (that don't have any means of authentication) in a manuscript.
As such, in light of the affect the cited web based material might have had on a given manuscript, it becomes important for referees, editors, other researchers, and the audience of the manuscript to ascertain the credibility of the cited information available on those Internet websites (sources). The same can be said of hitherto non-verifiable sources such as interim reports, e-mails, communication on newsgroups/userforums, personal communications (regular mail) and the like.